This invention relates to a plug connector assembly, and more particularly, to a capture facilitating device in a subminiature plug connector assembly.
Subminiature plug connector assemblies each comprise a pin strip and a jack strip. The pin strip has a mounting plate, a plurality of pins extending perpendicularly with respect to the mounting plate and a protective collar attached to the mounting plate and surrounding the pins. The jack strip similarly has a mounting plate and a multiplicity of jacks registrable with and adapted to receive respective ones of the pins of the pin strip in an assembled state of the plug connector assembly. The jack strip has a protective collar attached to the respective mounting plate and surrounding the jacks.
Such subminiature plug connector assemblies are commercially available and find application in information technology text and data processing, and measuring and control engineering and for the connection of peripheral equipment. The standardized basic design of these subminiature plug connectors includes soldering lugs, straight soldering pins and angled-off soldering pins.
The protective collar on a pin strip serves to protect the contacts, to guide the jack strip and pin strip during assembly and to assure noninterchangability. The pin strips are mounted on a circuit board, while the jack strips are mounted to a module carrier. The maximum offset of the plug connector elements is only 0.6 mm. This range may not be sufficient because the required tolerances cannot always to be adhered to in the design of circuit boards or of module carriers in a production context. In order to achieve reliable contacts nevertheless, expensive rework must be performed.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,204,737, a capture facilitating device for a jack strip comprises a frame provided with guiding elements beveled in a direction facing towards the end face of the jack strip. In addition, the frame of the capture facilitating device is provided with support elements for bracing the frame against the end face of the jack strip. The counter piece of the jack strip is a circuit board, the contact area of which is provided with contact fingers on both sides. In addition, the capture facilitating device is connected to the jack strip in a detachable but immovable manner, with the aid of shoulders of the jack strip and the support elements of the frame of the capturing device. Because in the assembly disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,204,737, a circuit board provided with contact fingers is used as the pin strip, the capturing range of the pin and jack strip combination is already large enough and does not require a capturing device. Moreover, the capturing device of this patent is not connected movably to the jack strip in the insertion direction of the pin strip, with the consequence that the pin strip must always be designed as part of a circuit board.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved plug connector assembly, including a capture facilitating device, of the above-described type.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved capture facilitating device for the above-described type of plug connector assembly.
Another, more particular, object of the present invention is to provide such an improved capture facilitating device wherein the capturing range for an associated subminiature plug connector assembly is substantially increased, while the handling is simple.